


For Keeps

by pearl_o



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Dirty Talk, F/M, Friendship, Homophobia, Incest, M/M, Post Beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-26
Updated: 2012-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-30 04:24:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/pseuds/pearl_o
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik has some advice for Raven on how to survive. Raven comes to her own conclusions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Keeps

It's not like Raven thought it would be like. Truthfully, she can't say exactly how she thought it would be, beyond the need to belong and not have to hide anymore. It feels like a failure somehow to admit to herself that she's lonely. 

She's never had trouble making friends before; she likes people, and they usually liked her, too. But Emma and Janos and Azazel don't seem interested in getting close; there's a dismissive look on their faces whenever she talks. She's not quite comfortable around Angel, even now, and she knows it's because she hasn't really forgiven Angel yet for leaving them at the CIA compound - which is hypocritical of her in so many ways, but it's true, nonetheless.

Which just leaves Erik. Raven doesn't know what to think about that.

She spends a lot of time in her room, really. It's more a cell than anything else: a bunk, white walls, white floor. She's not sure what country they're even in. Ever since they've rescued Emma, they haven't done anything but hide out here and argue about what's going to happen next. Raven doesn't speak up much during the meetings.

Erik pulls her aside after dinner one night. "You have a terrible poker face, you know," he says.

Raven sighs. "What do you want, Erik?"

"I want to give you a piece of advice." He's staring at her. Erik's gaze is always intense when it's aimed at you, but Raven's not going to let herself be overwhelmed by him. She meets his eyes.

"It's easier if you let go."

She blinks at him for a moment. "What?"

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself about what you left behind," Erik says impatiently. "That world is gone. You made your choices, now you live with them."

"I _know_ that," Raven snaps. "Of course I know that. What do you think-"

"It's easier if you hate him," Erik interrupts.

There's a sudden thickness in her throat. She swallows around it. "You mean Charles," she says, and it's not a question.

"Of course I mean Charles.".

"Don't be stupid, Erik. I _love_ Charles. Just because I came with you doesn't change that. I can't stop loving him."

"I didn't say you had to stop loving him," Erik says, and his gaze leaves her face then, flicking away for just a few seconds. "What I said is that you have to learn to hate him."

Raven sucks in a frustrated breath. Erik doesn't _understand_ , she thinks, he doesn't understand at _all_ \--

"Despite what you may think," Erik says, and his voice is quieter now and somehow even more dangerous, "you are not the only one to have loved him."

"It's not the same," she says.

Erik's face breaks into something between a grimace and a smile. "Did you know - did he ever tell you that we were lovers?"

Raven can feel the world go entirely still around her for a long moment. When the earth starts its orbit again, she says, "Charles isn't a homosexual."

"Charles is many, many things," Erik says. "So he never told you, then. Not about any of the boys."

"Shut _up_ ," she says. Closing her eyes doesn't get rid of the images that start to immediately spring up. She takes a step to leave, go to her room, but Erik grabs her arm with a hard grip and doesn't let go.

"Does that help any, Raven? Does that make it a little easier to hate him?" She shakes her head, refusing to look at him, and he continues, "It's all right, I promise you. You can admit that you've always hated him a bit."

"Don't make me any promises," Raven says, looking back up into his eyes, and it's the first time she's seen Erik look truly pleased by her response.

"How long were you lovers?" she says. She's not sure why it feels necessary that she know, but it does. It seems important.

"Since the day we left to follow Cerebro's coordinates," Erik says.

She nods, taking it in. All those months, all that time. "I suppose that's why you sent me away, then. That last night, before Cuba."

Erik lets go of her arm, then, moves back just a few inches. "Partly that. More of it was you. I don't take little girls to bed, Raven."

"You don't have to be insulting," she says, scowling. She rubs at her arm, still sore from his fingers. 

Erik shrugs. "It's not an insult to tell the truth. You were too immature then." He pauses. "You're not a little girl any longer, Raven. You're a woman now." He smiles - a more genuine smile than she's seen from him since they left the mansion - and says, "I wouldn't send you away now."

She narrows her eyes at him. "Good night, Erik."

"Good night," Erik says, and he doesn't stop her from leaving this time.

* * *

She goes to him a week later. He doesn't look surprised when he opens the door, just steps back to let her inside.

Erik's room looks even starker than hers is, though she doesn't know how that's possible. There's no personality in it anywhere. It's sort of strange, she thinks, that Erik's own personality can be so forceful and yet not touch anything.

She pushes him back against the wall - she knows he's letting her do it, but it feels good anyway. She presses his shoulders back and kisses him for a long time. After a little while, his hands come down to her hips, and then around to her ass, pulling her body close against his. His touch feels different, in a way she hadn't predicted. People don't touch her much, not in her own skin.

"You want to do this?" Erik says, pressing a line of kisses down her neck.

Raven shivers and says, "Take me to bed."

Erik is lean and muscled, and she takes a moment to admire the long lines of his figure as he undresses. When he settles himself on top of her, she runs her hands down his arms and back. Some of his skin is soft, but there are rough patches, too, calluses and scars. He's warm everywhere, and she can already feel his erection pushing against her.

"You're beautiful, you know," Erik says, sounding too casual. He lowers his mouth down to her breast, taking her nipple into his mouth. Raven can't help the startled sound she makes as he begins to suckle her, even though she suspects - knows - how smug it will make him. She rests a hand in his hair, thick and smooth; with the other, she plays with the breast that's left free. The sensations are so different between her own fingers and Erik's tongue, but they're both good.

While he mouthes at her tit, Erik's hand is on her leg. He starts a wispy touch around her knee, which feels like it should be ticklish but isn't, and moves slowly up her thighs, his fingers leaving gentle strokes against her skin, making her want more. When he pauses at the crease of her thigh, she opens her legs for him, wide as she can, inviting him inside.

He lets go of her breast, then, and moves his head back up to kiss her again while his thumb begins to play with her clit. "It's better this way, isn't it?" he murmurs against her mouth. "I bet Charles never fucked you like this, did he? It was never the true you, just that silly disguise. 

Her body keeps moving against him even as her mind processes the words. "Charles and I _never_ ," she says, barely getting the words out. She doesn't know how much of the breathlessness is from what they're doing, and how much is from what they're saying.

Erik does pause, then, his hand going still. He rises up a little, moving his head away far enough to look her in the eyes. "Is that so? Hmm," he says, sounding thoughtful. "I had a different impression from some of the things he said."

"He's - he's my _brother_ ," Raven says, biting her lip.

Erik doesn't laugh, which is good, because if he had, she thinks she would have to hit him, and get up in leave. Instead, his eyes have a rare kindness in them as he says, "My dear. Let's have no lies between us. Not here, not now."

Raven swallows hard, and she kisses him again.

They flip over on the small bed, so that Erik is on his back, Raven on her knees, straddling his thighs. It's an odd thing to think, Raven's pretty sure, but the first thing that comes into her mind, seeing his penis is how _pretty_ it is. She takes it into her hand, enjoying the feel of his skin, the way it makes him let out a soft sigh.

"Would you like me to tell you?" Erik says. His eyes are closed, but there's still that note in his voice. "What it'd be like with him."

She shivers, full body, her grip going tight on his cock. She didn't do it on purpose, but Erik likes it, bucking up against her hard, so she has to push him back down.

"He likes to kiss," Erik says. "For hours, sometimes. Nothing but kissing, touching your shoulder, or maybe your hair. You can't hurry him along."

Raven crawls further up his body, lifting herself up. It takes her a moment to get the positioning right, his cock against her cunt, and then she's sinking down onto him. She goes still, taking deep breaths, feeling her body adjust against the length and girth of his cock.

"He would still be dressed at this point," Erik says. His eyes are _still_ closed, damn him. "He'd have you naked, spread across the bed, and he'd eat you out until you wept from it, and then - only then would he fuck you."

He opens her eyes then, and smiles up at her. "I'm not that patient, I'm afraid," he says, and then he _moves_ inside her, and she can't breathe.

They're both quiet for a while after that, and she doesn't think about anything but the rhythm of their bodies together, the sensations flowing outwards from everywhere they touch. If nothing else, what Erik said before was true: she's had sex before, but never in her true form, and it's so much _more_ this way. Every feeling is stronger like this, on her own skin. More than that, it's amazing to not have to hold back, to not have to keep apart of herself aside, concentrating on maintaining the illusion. There's just _this_.

She runs her hands up and down his torso, scratching her nails lightly across his chest. He grabs her wrist with one of his own hands, holding her palm tight against his skin, so she can feel the beat of his heart underneath.

"Did you do this with him?" Raven says. Her thighs are starting to feel the strain of the way she's riding him, moving up and down on his cock again and again. It's a slight pain that her body interprets like more pleasure, urging her on faster and faster.

"Yes," Erik says, almost a hiss, "yes, God, he rode me like he was starving for it - you should have seen him, so fucking beautiful - I didn't even have to touch him, he didn't need it, just my cock- _Raven_." 

It's a relief, mostly, when Erik's too far gone to form any more words.

Raven can see it in her mind, so easily: Charles's pale skin, acres and acres of it. His awkward grace, his complete comfort in his body. The way their bodies would have look, joined together. Charles, resting on his haunches, his head thrown back, his throat exposed. And then pushing Erik down, using him like a toy, chasing his own pleasure-

Part of her, a significant part, is repelled. Unnatural, she can't help think, perverted, _not right_. But the bigger part of her, the deeper part, is struck by it, and she turns it over in her mind, letting the feeling growing inside her rise up higher and higher.

Raven screams when she comes. She's not expecting it - she's never reacted to an orgasm like that before - and she thinks she would ordinarily be a little embarrassed about it, but she's surprised to discover she doesn't give a shit.

Erik's hands tighten on her hips, guiding her to keep moving, and the noises he makes are amazing, low and rough and meaningless, and his face is agonized, his bottom lip twisted in his teeth. Pretty man, Raven thinks, and: she's never going to be intimidated by him again, never in awe of him, now that she's seen him like this.

"Open your eyes," Raven says, in a voice that doesn't allow for argument, and when he reaches his release, Erik is looking directly at her.

* * *

When she returns from the bathroom, Erik is sitting up in his bed, smoking a cigarette. She sits down beside him and lets her head rest against his shoulder.

She's never felt this fond of Erik before. She'd looked at him, during all that time at the compound and during training, and envied him his strength. But there's more than one kind of strength, and Erik's is rigid, unmoving and unyielding.

Raven knows how to be fluid, She can change. She's done it before, and she'll do it again.

Erik spent a lifetime chasing down Sebastian Shaw, with an obsessive fervor. Erik doesn't know a thing about letting go, Raven thinks. He's never let go of a single thing in his life.

"You don't really hate him at all," she says softly.

Erik goes stiff. "You don't know what you're talking about," he says, after a moment.

"Oh, Erik," Raven says. She finds his free hand and tangles it with her own. "No lies between us, remember?"

Erik doesn't respond to that, but she can feel some of the tension leave his body.

"It's all right," Raven says, squeezing his hand. "I won't tell."

The sound of Erik's snort makes her smile. She thinks: if she's left with Erik, well, there are worse places to be. She can see now, for the first time since the day on the beach, how the future can unfold, and it's an image she likes. Working for what they want, the way things should be, for what she knows is right. It's true that she doesn't have Charles anymore, but even that is all right, because she doesn't _need_ him anymore, either. Like Erik said: she's not a little girl any longer.

And after all, she's not completely alone here.

She thinks: she and Erik are going to be such good friends.


End file.
